Getting your first referral accepted starts your CredScore™ and opens better roles. This guide is for new referrers who want to get their first introduction through the quality gate.
The most common mistake new referrers make is browsing the role list first and then trying to think of someone who fits.
This produces weak introductions. You're pattern-matching against a job description rather than drawing on specific knowledge of what someone is good at.
Start with one person — the most talented professional in your network who you know is open to new opportunities or might be. Think about what they do well, what kind of work they've produced, what situations they've navigated. Then look at the roles and ask whether any of them match what you already know.
When you write the introduction from this direction — starting with the person — it reads authentically. When you write it from the role description backward, it reads like a template.
Your first referral should be for a role where you have genuine domain knowledge.
If you've spent your career in engineering, refer an engineer. If you've worked in finance and operations, refer for finance and operations roles. If you've led go-to-market teams, refer for go-to-market roles.
The reason isn't that cross-domain introductions never work. It's that the quality gate scores relevance — and relevance includes whether your background gives you credibility to evaluate the candidate for this specific role. An introduction from an experienced engineer about an engineering candidate scores higher than the same introduction from someone outside the domain.
Your first introduction should stack every advantage you have.
Every role on Credora has a quality threshold visible to referrers — typically between 5 and 8 on a 10-point scale.
Before you write your introduction, note the threshold. This is the minimum score your introduction needs to enter the hiring manager's active queue. If the threshold is 7, you need to write an introduction that's substantively better than average.
Higher thresholds signal that the company is being selective. They're worth targeting if you know the candidate well and can write specifically — selective queues get more attention from hiring managers precisely because they have fewer, higher-quality submissions.
The quality gate cares about one thing above all others: specificity.
"She's a great engineer" is a character statement. It's also unverifiable and meaningless to a hiring manager who doesn't know you.
"She led the infrastructure migration that unblocked our Series B — a six-month project where she managed four contractors and delivered on the original timeline after the lead engineer left in month two" is a work statement. It describes a real thing she did, in a real context, with real constraints.
You don't need to write a paragraph about their whole career. You need one or two specific things you observed directly. That's what moves the score.
As you write your introduction, Credora shows you a running quality score. Use it.
If you're at a 4 and the threshold is 6, you have information: the introduction needs more specificity. Add the context of how you know them. Add the concrete work example. Remove the generic adjectives.
The preview is there to help you submit confidently rather than guessing. Most referrers who go back and improve a low-scoring draft bring it above threshold within one revision.
Don't submit an introduction for someone who doesn't know you're referring them. It puts them in an awkward position when the company reaches out, and it affects the outcome if they're unprepared for the conversation.
A quick message — "I saw a role at [Company] that matches what you've been looking for. I'd like to refer you — do you want me to go ahead?" — takes 30 seconds and changes the candidate's experience entirely.
If your introduction meets the quality threshold, it enters the company's active queue immediately. If accepted, your CredScore™ improves, your candidate enters the pipeline, and you can track their progress in real time from your referrer portal.
Getting your first referral accepted is the most important step on Credora. It starts your CredScore™ and opens better roles. Start with the person you know best.